Thursday, July 25, 2024

Classic children's song about a lark / THU 7-25-24 / Slogan in the 2016 Republican presidential primary / Hit the ball well, in baseball slang / English town known for its mineral springs / Singer who coaches on "The Voice," familiarly / First actor to portray a Bond villain (Le Chiffre, 1954) / Willa Cather novel set in 1880s Nebraska / Major fantasy sports platform / Spanish region with a namesake wine

Constructor: Damon Gulczynski

Relative difficulty: Easy (as rebus puzzles go)


THEME: GOES OUT WITH A BANG (37A: Finishes in grand style, like the answers to the starred clues?) — theme answers are brand names and titles and slogans that end (or "go out") with a "!"; that "!" (which, like all punctuation, would normally not be represented in a crossword answer) is represented by the letters "BANG" in all the crosses. So, it's a rebus puzzle where you have "!" in the Across and "BANG" in the Down (“bang” being an informal term for an exclamation point): 

Theme answers:
  • CHIPS AHOY! / SHEBANG (21A: *Nabisco cookie brand / 9D: The whole ___)
  • YAHOO! / SLAM-BANG (25A: *Major fantasy sports platform / 14D: Exciting in a noisy or violent way)
  • O, PIONEERS! / BANGLES (53A: *Willa Cather novel set in 1880s Nebraska / 57D: Rigid bracelets)
  • JEB! / HEADBANGS (61A: *Slogan in the 2016 Republican presidential primary / 44D: Rocks out to heavy metal, say)
Word of the Day: "ALOUETTE" (39D: Classic children's song about a lark) —
 
"Alouette" (pronounced [alwɛt]) is a popular Quebecois children's song, commonly thought to be about plucking the feathers from a lark. Although it is in French, it is well known among speakers of other languages; in this respect, it is similar to "Frère Jacques". Many US Marines and other Allied soldiers learnt the song while serving in France during World War I and took it home with them, passing it on to their children and grandchildren. [...] "Alouette" has become a symbol of French Canada for the world, an unofficial national song. Today, the song is used to teach French and English-speaking children in Canada, and others learning French around the world, the names of body parts. Singers will point to or touch the part of their body that corresponds to the word being sung in the song. (wikipedia)
• • •

This one mostly worked for me, though the nature of the theme made it Awfully easy. All the rebus squares come at the ends of their Across answers and all those squares are "BANG!"s. Once you pick up the gimmick (which was not terribly hard), you aren't likely to be tortured by the potentially destructive presence of hidden rebus squares. You know they're out there, and you know they're "BANG!"s, so if a corner isn't coming together as easily as it should, you just have to ask yourself, "could a 'BANG!' go somewhere in here," and voila! Actually, I never really had to ask. The "BANG!"s seemed to announce themselves, loudly, as you might expect (they're "BANG!"s, after all, not whimpers). I had CHIPS AHOY and then extra square—checked the cross on that square and could see clearly that the answer was SHEBANG. And that was that. Well, at that point, I didn't know the theme concept—I didn't know why we were doing "BANG!"s—but like 20 seconds later the revealer showed up, and that cracked it. "BANG!"s ahoy! There's something slightly monotonous about the theme, and the revealer was kind of anticlimactic (it explained, but it didn't surprise) ... and yet whatever slightly tired feelings I was having about the theme were all blown away by one glorious, bygone slogan; a mere syllable that sent my jaded heart soaring. That slogan, that syllable, that short burst of low-key energy that is perhaps the only amusing memory I have of the 2016 presidential race? Why, it's JEB!, of course. JEB! I laughed for real. The guts you gotta have to bring that one back. The confidence that anyone will remember! I am surprised by how much I loved remembering the delightful quaintness and completely ineffectual "enthusiasm" of that slogan. Man ... good times. Dude had no idea what hit him. Then the election happened and we were all JEB! Oof. See, I don't like remembering the whole 2016 SHEBANG. I prefer remembering *just* the plucky, go-get-'em slogan. The three letters least likely to precede an exclamation point. J-E-B! The little engine that couldn't, god bless him.

[it hurts to watch]

Oh, look at that, the puzzle is 16 wide. Didn't even notice. I guess your options were: go with GO OUT... and a narrow 14 or go with GOES OUT... and expand to 16. Wise choice. Give yourself room. 


I was a little disappointed in patches with the short fill, which ran a little olden, especially olden-namey: ALEC ESTEE IVOR LORNA, 20th-century stalwarts all. There was also APERS and ITTY and ATSEA and AGAR and ODED and other hardcore repeaters of various levels of irksomeness. But the theme was strong enough to carry the day, and some of the longer answers had real pizzazz. I do enjoy a MOCHA LATTE and I especially enjoy PETER LORRE (30D: First actor to portray a Bond villain (Le Chiffre, 1954)) whose name I was happy to see in full today (Have you seen M, you should see M ... also The Maltese Falcon ... but I digress). I had no idea (or forgot) that "ALOUETTE" was about a lark. I think it was the name of a cheese when I was growing up, so the whole "plucking" thing didn't quite make sense in French class, at first. Yeah, here we go: a cheese spread, actually:


As for the song: it's an oddly jaunty and sunny tune considering the topic of the lyrics appears to be bird torture. Probably one of those things you're just not supposed to think too hard about. 

Bullets:
  • 46A: Get more of the same, maybe (REORDER) — there used to be a kind of rule (a soft rule, but a reasonable rule, I think) that you weren't supposed to repeat letter strings of longer than, say, 4 letters. It's hard to imagine someone even noticing let alone caring about having PARAGON and AGONY in the same grid, for instance, but get over 4 letters and the duplicated letter strings can start to become conspicuous. I mention this because I found "ORDER" crossing "ORDER" (i.e. REORDER crossing BORDERED) kind of jarring. If they hadn't been crossing, I probably wouldn't have noticed. But they were and I did.
  • 26A: Feature of "woulda," "coulda" or "shoulda" (SILENT L) — I love this clue. It's such great misdirection. Gets you looking at the slanginess of those "a" endings and then hits you with "Psych! It was the 'L' I was talking about all along! Yeah, I coulda (!) just used 'would,' 'could,' and 'should,' but where's the fun in that!?" Brilliant.
  • 22D: Counsel: Abbr. (ATT.) — I was telling myself this was short for "attaché" right up until I started writing this bullet point, when I realized "oh it's just 'attorney,' duh."
  • 35D: Oscar-winning Hathaway (ANNE) — as you know if you read the P.S. on Tuesday's blog, I was inspired by the puzzle to watch The Princess Diaries earlier this week and it was indeed enjoyable. Yes there are tiresome Disney qualities to it, and the treatment of high school is, like most movie treatments of high school, eye-rollingly simplistic and caricatured, but ANNE Hathaway and Julie Andrews and especially Heather Matarazzo (as the best friend) are all super charming and funny. Oh, and Hector Elizondo is in it! He makes everything better. And he and Andrews are kinda hot together (Andrews is the widowed queen of Genovia (!) and Elizondo's her bodyguard / driver who becomes a kind of low-key love interest ... they dance ... it's nice). Mandy Moore is also in it. Garry Marshall directs. There's lots and lots and lots of great shots of San Francisco. It's not Vertigo or Bullitt, but you could do worse.
See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

92 comments:

  1. "Bang" is also old-fashioned slang for an exclamation point. From Wikipedia:

    "In the 1950s, secretarial dictation and typesetting manuals in America referred to the mark as "bang",perhaps from comic books – where the ! appeared in dialogue bubbles to represent a gun being fired – although the nickname probably emerged from letterpress printing. This "bang" usage is behind the names of the interrobang, an unconventional typographic character, and a shebang, a feature of Unix computer systems."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cute but perhaps the easiest Thursday in years. Fill in the BANG and whoosh - it’s over. Liked all the themers - the remaining fill is fine. Neat that both long downs double up - LATTE and LORRE. Didn’t know IVOR - didn’t need to.

    Enjoyable Thursday morning solve - just over far too quickly.

    Her mother is a geek

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  3. Anonymous6:27 AM

    Non-American here. I figured out the BANG in SHE_ first, then the revealer was a gimme. I've seen CHIPS AHOY and O PIONEERS in crosswords, but I didn't know about the exclamation marks, nor did I know JEB. YAHOO helped me see what was going on with the BANGs in the acrosses. I got it done in Wednesday time because of the starred clues. The stars are unnecessary IMO.

    Seeing that 1D was a name and that I could only get 2D with Acrosses, I was fearing a double Natick with 15A being a fish I didn't know. Luckily the pike was not a fish, but I'm always on high alert for this kind of trickery, especially from Thursday to Sunday.

    I don't know whether or not I should be proud of myself for guessing MOIST just because 8D might have started with I (ITSY, ITTY).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wanderlust6:49 AM

    Got the BANGs easily from the down clues, but had no idea what they were doing in the across clues until I came here. Except for maybe YAHOO!, I had no idea any of those things ended in exclamation points. Very easy and very meh.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Caroline6:53 AM

    Anne Hathaway along side Bard was a nice touch,

    ReplyDelete

  6. @Anon 6:27, I too was thinking fish for 15A.

    As appears to be the case with several solvers, I got the rebus from SHE[BANG] (9D), then recognized the trick when I got SLAM[BANG] at 14D and proceeded to fill in [BANG] in the other locations. As OFL said, Easy.

    No overwrites, no WOEs.

    @Rex: Yes, ATSEA (32A) is a hardcore repeater, but its level of irksomeness is way less than its cousin, ASEA.


    ReplyDelete
  7. Andrew Z.7:15 AM

    I’ve never heard of ! = bang so when I had CHIPS AHOY BANG, I thought it was a red, white, and blue, July 4th type cookie! 😂

    ReplyDelete
  8. Got the BANGs easily from the down clues, but had no idea what they were doing in the across clues until I looked at Wordplay. I do know the word 'interrobang', which is a questio mark plus exclamation point (?!), but never thought of 'bang' as a standalone for the exclamation point.

    And I knew O PIONEERS! ended with an exclamation point, but did not remember that for the others, and punctuation is routinely ignored in puzzles, so in short (too late!) I missed the theme.

    I really don't get MOIST-hating. The ideal cake texture? Moist. The ideal turkey? Moist.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Realized that there was something fishy going on with the BANG’s at YAHOO BANG which just looked absurd. Got the reveal early enough, which helped with the “fill in the blanks” on the rest of them. I gave up on trying to make sense of the acrosses and just went with the flow. I figured Rex would explain to me what the hell JEBBANG meant (I figured it had something to do with Bernie Sanders - hasn’t he been around like, forever).

    That little section on the west in the middle presented some unique challenges with George R.R. Martin, somebody Novello, and the allium family. I didn’t know that ARK was a scroll holder (I always think boat). Ok, so I never saw the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark” - is that what all of the fuss was about? All of these years I never knew that - so perhaps a post-solve aha moment for me.

    A positive consequence of this theme is that it gave Rex a chance to remind us all ofwhat an exquisitely divine voice Nancy Sinatra had.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Eater of Sole7:51 AM

    Saw through the "pike relative" misdirection but for along time could only come up with "spear" and the crosses didn't work. No idea that Yahoo! was associated with fantasy sports. That outfit sure has reinvented itself a lot.

    Of course the first thing I thought of for 6A (most hated word) was "adorbs" but it didn't fit. I'd actually accept that answer with an appropriate clue like that.

    ReplyDelete
  11. David F7:52 AM

    @kitshef, it's not the concept of MOIST people object to - it's the sound of the word. I'm not sure why, but they do. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous3:53 PM

      I think the reason varies by individual. All inexplicable to me. It sounds fine, and many of its usages are positive.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:10 PM

      Hardest Thursday in years

      Delete
  12. Damon is clever, tricky, and there’s ever a twinkle in his eye. He has one of those minds made for making crosswords, always finding wordplay connections, always on the alert. This is something I could have said it at any point in his 20 years of making NYT puzzles, today’s being his 47th.

    I can just imagine his brain shifting into “on” mode upon coming across the phrase GOES OUT WITH A BANG – whirring, conjuring possibilities, taking this, rejecting that, fully absorbed until… “Bang! Got it!”

    Terrific theme that he came up with before anyone else.

    Meanwhile, lovely rub in clue and answer to escort us into the latter part of the Crosslandia week. Lovely memories for me among the answers – PETER LORRE, the taste of LORNA Doone cookies, the mirth that the exclamation point after JEB gave me back then, the song ALOUETTE. Lovely answers to enhance the grid’s scenery: TABOO, SLAM BANG, MOCHA LATTE, SCEPTERS, PLEBE, RIOJA. Even that answer EDGES sitting on the border.

    You’ve once again entertained, Damon. I am so grateful for the good feelings, the loveliness you’ve splashed my way over the years. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous8:08 AM

    FH
    I entered REBUS-! in those cells - - not BANG - - and got the happy music.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous8:13 AM

    Nobody is mentioning Tod (director of Dracula). Is the director commonly known, or is it some crosswordese I’m not aware of?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous3:55 PM

      Pretty well-known. Although I thought it was ToDD.

      Delete
  15. The web version of the puzzle accepted both the character "!" and the rebus "BANG". I opted for the former, being lazy, and it worked.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous8:29 AM

    Interesting thing I noticed:

    Willa Cather’s book O PIONEERS intersects with ALOUETTE, and Cather wrote another book called “The Song of the Lark”. Wonder if that was done on purpose!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Bob Mills8:38 AM

    Every Thursday the NYT finds a new way to annoy even its longest standing subscribers. I finished the puzzle perfectly, but the music never started.

    I tried using rebus with BANG. No music. I tried using rebus with (!). No music. I tried using rebus with BANG! No music. i can't wait for Friday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:43 AM

      The ! worked for me on the app.

      Delete
  18. Anonymous8:42 AM

    Two Lorna Doones and one Chips Ahoy! In one week. Nice break from Oreos, while consistently Nabisco.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hey All (BANG)
    Didn't realize all the Themers ended with a ! (especially JEB!). But knew the Downs were BANGs. Hmm, says I. I'll get Rex to explain. Then when finished, all my Rebopodes BANGs turned to !'s. Read Rex to find out, yes indeed, all those things have a ! in them.

    Waaay in the back of the ole brain, know that an exclamation point is referred to as a BANG. That's part of the ?! interrobang. Which begs the question, is a ? an Interro?

    Saw the 16 wideness, Yay Me! Needed today for the central Revealer.

    I thought there have been more EONs in Earth history. Four seems low.

    Where's OKLAHOMA! (Does that have a BANG at the end, or is my brain fuzzy again?)

    Anyway, have a Happy Thursday!

    No F's (In oversized grid. Need to start BANGing F's in!) 😁
    RooMonster
    DarrinV

    ReplyDelete
  20. I thought Rex would really tear this one up. Easy, old fashioned fill, repetitive theme, seemed more “Monday” than “Thursday”. I was disappointed in it, but glad Rex is in such a good mood! Other than the bird torture of course which does seem incongruous with the melody. Then again, I danced at parties to Blister in the sun for years until I realized what it was about.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:29 PM

      you misinterpreted the lyrics. but either way, why not still dance to it ?

      Delete
  21. The app while perhaps accepting ! and BANG did not accept BANG! Which I had filled in. A small quibble but an annoyance indicative of the state of the NYTimes crossword. Just an endless parade of small annoyances when there should be actually fun challenges. Really annoyed The New Yorker cut back on their crosswords. Many of the same constructors given atheism space to actually be inventive, modern, and daring. NYTimes is feeling very stodgy.

    ReplyDelete
  22. SHEBANG gave away the game almost instantly, I just wrote in a ! in the rebus squares and let it stand for both, got to the revealer too soon (in the middle of the puzz, nuts) and then I was done. Agree with others that this was the easiest Thursday I can remember.

    Knew ALOUETTE was a bird and now I know what kind, so there's that. The SILENT (insert letter here)ploy seems to have been showing up quite a lot lately so that was easy.

    I was surprised OFL made no mention of MOIST, as he has cited it before as his personal most hated adjective. Maybe he was solving too fast to notice it.

    Usually a fan of your stuff, DG. but this one Didn't Get my brain cells humming. Thanks for some speedy fun.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous8:56 AM

    I took a chance and entered “!” instead of “bang” in the rebus squares… and I got the Congratulations! screen (!)

    ReplyDelete
  24. Alice Pollard8:59 AM

    it was tough for me, I didnt has out the ! biz until OPIONEERS!; I had CHIPSAHOYs up top. one of those ones that is easy once you get the theme. I was over my average and struggled a bit. Surprised Rex rated it EASY, now I feel really dumb...

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous9:05 AM

    It’s like they are trying to make the puzzle as easy as possible.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Tennessee9:07 AM

    Well ... I checked "OPIONEERS!" out yesterday at the library in Jackson and read it from cover to cover. I got 53 across.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Am I the only one who can’t print a PDF of the crossword?

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous9:41 AM

    They missed a golden opportunity to work this band into today’s puzzle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ChrisS3:17 PM

      Another appropriate band name is "The Go! Team"

      Delete
  29. So weird. Vertically, two go out with a BANG, one goes out with a BANGS, and one comes IN with a BANG. And the four across BANGS are really exclamation points.

    I still teach ALOUETTE to guitar students because it only has two chords and you get to talk about murdering noisy birds in Canada. It's also funny to tell students still reeling from surviving Row Row Row Your Boat they'll now need to learn to play guitar in French. They don't laugh at that joke, but I do.

    Whoever is in charge of selling chocolate chips and blue berries is the best salesman of all time because they're in everything, and while they're okay, they're not nearly as great as their statistical appearance in my diet would indicate.

    And the rest is ho-hum. Probably isn't helping that I have a runny nose, upset stomach, and headache all added to my permanent state of fatigue, so I am grumpy and this puzzle didn't fix all that. I ate some murdered animals yesterday and I think the universe is unhappy with me.

    Propers: 10 (boo)
    Places: 3
    Products: 9
    Partials: 6
    Foreignisms: 1
    --
    Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 29 (37%)
    Recipes: 0 (beta)

    Funnyisms: 1 🤨

    Uniclues:

    1 Host a yoga class.
    2 Origins of the fragrance "Eau de Cowgirl" explained explained by cosmetic giant.
    3 What a social influencer does.
    4 New guy who hates each cultivar of Allium ampeloprasum.
    5 Researches option for making a bow.

    1 AMASS MOIST MATS
    2 ESTEE CITED REBA
    3 HYPES RE-ORDER
    4 ANTI-LEEK PLEBE
    5 SEES INTO YEW

    My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Gramma going with a grumbly gut. CARSICK NANA.

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    ReplyDelete
  30. So, easy, huh? I was completely shut out in the NE. 11, 12, 13 & 14 down were all WOE, as were 11, 17, 20 & 25 across. Got Epsom and that's all! Which killed my guess for 14 D, whizBANG. Came here with my tail between my legs to find it's SLAMBANG, a thing I'm sure I've never heard.

    And you guys knew YAHOO is a fantasy sports platform? Huh.

    Just not my day I guess. First DNF on a Thursday in I don't know how long, a year maybe?

    ReplyDelete
  31. My morning routine is such that here are often a few interruptions in my solving of the puzzle -- which is one of the reasons I never time myself. So that today I was en route from the kitchen to the living room when I thought to myself: "CHIPS AHOY!" has an exclamation point!!!!" What better place to think of such a thing than the kitchen?

    CHIPSAHOYBANG had really been bothering me. SHE[BANG] had been so easy to get -- after which I immediately filled in GOES OUT WITH A BANG without a second thought. But CHIPSAHOYBANG????

    Aha! Now I remembered. And I knew I'd seen/heard it from the NYTXW in some previous puzzle. BANG can be a word for exclamation point. I have never heard/seen that anywhere else -- of this I'm quite sure.

    It sounds like part of that Victor Borge routine*, doesn't it?

    Anyway, the dual BANG/! revealer in the Acrosses and Downs gave this puzzle a wow factor for me that wouldn't have been there either with all BANGS or with all exclamation points. I had a real "Aha Moment" -- although I realize that those of you who have often thought of a "!" as a BANG will probably have had less of one. But I really liked this puzzleBANG.

    *If you've never seen it, go to YouTube and look up Victor Borge/punctuation.

    And now the rest of the puzzle made perfect sense

    ReplyDelete
  32. Playful clues for Hidden Diagonal Words (HDW) in today's grid:

    1. Stars may have lots of them, including Bart STARR

    2. Voyeur

    3. Spectacular biological breakthrough

    4. Shrewd

    Answers below

    Didn't make the connection between ! and BANG, but solving online changed my rebus BANGs into !s, so that was that. This one played slower for me--not sure why; partly the SW with RIOJA and JEB!, I suppose. Possibly just a wave length thing--MOIST, MOCHALATTE (not into the 543,622 options for beverage orders at Starbucks).

    1. HITS (begins with the H in the above mentioned 6D, MOCHA LATTE--Bart STARR had a lot of a different kind of HIT than REBA)

    2. SPY-ER (yeah, I know it's not an actual word, but the clue is Voyeur and the answer, SPY-ER, begins with the S in 29D, "A SIN")

    3. DNA! (a tribute to Rosalind Franklin, and likely the only HDW I'll ever find with an exclamation mark in it; begins with the D in 66A, EDGES)

    And the Hidden Diagonal Word of the day!!

    4. ASTUTE (from the A in 51A, ALOUD, moving to the NW; not only a rare ^-letter HDW, but a really dandy word that is 6 letters without a POC)

    I'm OUT!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:28 AM

      PITA SE from "P" in CHIPS

      Delete
  33. If you pick up after a pilates class, do you AMASS MOIST MATS?

    If I ever saw the word pike used as a LANCE, it was long forgotten, and I don’t know/care about baseball slang. Since both LANCE and MASH are real words, that an “A” was the likely solution, but I decided to go with the flow of the theme and write a ? instead. Finished with L?ANCE/M?SH and yes, I’m happy with that.

    from etymonline:
    Pike, "weapon with a long shaft and a pointed metal head," 1510s, from French pique "a spear; pikeman," from piquer "to pick, puncture, pierce," from Old French pic "sharp point or spike," a general continental term (Spanish pica, Italian picca, Provençal piqua), perhaps ultimately from a Germanic [Barnhart] or Celtic source (see pike (n.2)). An alternative explanation traces the Old French word (via Vulgar Latin *piccare "to prick, pierce") to Latin picus "woodpecker." No doubt, too, there is influence from pike (n.1), which by 1200 had a sense of "spiked staff."
    "Formerly the chief weapon of a large part of the infantry; in the 18th c. superseded by the bayonet" [OED]; hence old expressions such as pass through pikes "come through difficulties, run the gauntlet;" push of pikes "close-quarters combat." German Pike, Dutch piek, Danish pik, etc. are from French pique.

    SCEPTER is a fun word, and also is related to LANCE: from Greek skēptron "staff to lean on,”…..from root of skeptein "'to support oneself, lean; pretend something, use as a pretention." ….Old English sceaft "shaft, spear, LANCE

    PIPER is another fun word, as is ALOUETTE, but now I’m alternating between ear worm tunes.

    Good idea for a theme but somehow it didn’t live up to its HYPE. At first I wrote BANG in the rebus squares, but that looked so dumb I inserted exclamation points in front of my BANGs. Clunky but made me feel better.

    I didn’t care for all the PPP, which included all of the themers. Maybe Mr. Gulczynski could do one with BANG phrases, rather than proper nouns. Get on it!

    ReplyDelete
  34. ...But my last line doesn't make any sense!

    Does this ever happen to you? You change something in a paragraph, think you've deleted it, but it migrates to a place far, far below what you can see on your screen? And then once you've pressed "Submit" it raises its superfluous head -- Poof!

    Or should I say BANG?

    ReplyDelete
  35. Anonymous10:42 AM

    YAHOOBANG. A Thursday without little circles or shaded squaresBANG. And with our little papillon's name there at the bottomBANG.

    ReplyDelete
  36. I must’ve been absent from English class the day we had the punctuation lesson which explained how an exclamation point is synonymous and interchangeable with the word BANG. I solve on paper SO my puzzle had exclamation points at the ends of the theme answers. Period. Then I spent a few minutes staring at the downs trying to figure out what I was missing eclipses Seriously question mark. Well comma alrighty then. If you say so.

    @KarenRackle (9:15) I access the puzzle via the NYT website on a PC. No problem printing today.

    ReplyDelete
  37. I guess if you have a 16-letter revealer it pretty much can't be in the bottom of the puzzle, but its location did take the fun out of guessing the theme--and a fine theme it was!

    Not much else to say, except that for some reason I enjoyed seeing LORRE and LORNA close together.

    I'm not really sure, but I'm wondering about STONE. I know it's a British unit of weight, but I'm not sure it's a unit of mass as well. Any physicists out there who can enlighten me?

    ReplyDelete
  38. Yes -- I forgot to mention it: Like @kitshef, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever why MOIST should be a "hated" word. It's not at all unpleasant in either sound or in meaning. Here's something else I've learned from the NYTXW that otherwise I would have gone to my grave without ever knowing.

    I do have a word that is offensive to me both in sound and in meaning. The sound of a word is as big a factor for me as its meaning. So that while, say, " hate" and "bigotry" denote ugly things, the words themselves don't make me cringe. Here are the two words that do make me cringe and that always have.

    "Stink" and "stinky". I can't stand the sound of them and have never ever used them.

    Conversely, a beautiful word for me is beautiful in both sound and meaning. So that "beautiful" and "happy" are not two of my favorite words because their sounds are not especially euphonious. Here are two of my favorites:

    "Serenity" and "serendipity."

    Don't they just roll off your tongue in the most appealing way?

    ReplyDelete
  39. Yep, easiest Thursday puzzle in a while, but I enjoyed it BANG.

    Um, @Rex, unless you are talking about the shortbread cookie, Lorna DOONE is 19th century and was published about the same time period as Great Expectations. Although not a pick for 9th grade literature study, it IS considered a “classic,” so I think it falls into a different category than the others you CITEd.

    The only sports fantasy platforms I knew of were Fanduel and Draftkings. I had no idea YAHOOBANG was into that.

    @Bob Mills…it sounds like you solve on the NYT app. If you don’t care about the nonsense of a “streak” then hit “check puzzle” when you don’t get the happy music (I turned THAT off…it’s annoying!) and you will likely see you had a typo or whatnot.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Minoridreams10:59 AM

    @Gary Jugert - I love your joke!!! Mostly because I now cook in Italian!

    I didn't find this particularly easy. Why is moist hated? Don't get it. Even though I didn't know that a word for ! was bang (and didn't notice until after completing the puzzle that all the themers ended in an exclamation point) I took it on faith that it would all become clear to me when reading this blog. Sangl Alouette as a child and it was a happy memory to see it here - but never knew what the word meant or what the song was about!

    ReplyDelete
  41. @Karen, I feel your frustration BANG (Maybe call the help desk?)

    After days of thinking I was a technodolt, & repeatedly assuming I had messed up, the NYT finally admitted that they don’t have printing links for iPad users BANG

    I now need to wrestle my wife’s iMac if I want to use the magical no.2 on a paper solve, and as in many marriages her willingness to let my grubby paws fondle her precious keys is truly an act of love BANG

    Glitching ASIDE, I enjoyed today’s puzzle (@Son VOLT’s second comment parallels mine) so I can say with a smirk that Damon started my day with a BANG

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:25 PM

      @newsboy 11:02
      That must be why I can print from my PC laptop but cannot print the puzzle for my Apple iPhone. I wish they would fix that.

      Delete
  42. Here's the poem where I first heard of the use of Bang for exclamation marks.
    Sorry if I've shared it before!

    <>!*''#
    ^"`$$-
    !*=@$_
    %*<>~#4
    &[]../
    | { , , SYSTEM HALTED

    Read aloud:

    Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
    Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
    Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
    Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
    Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
    Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH!

    By Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous7:04 PM

      Love the poem! Thanks for sharing.

      Delete
  43. Easy. I too caught the theme fairly early and was hoping that ! would work in the iPad app…and it did!

    tiny before ITTY ate up some nanoseconds.

    Smooth grid, delightful/fun theme, liked it a bunch!

    ReplyDelete
  44. Me, too, for finding the puzzle easy. When CHIPS AHOY had an extra square, previous Thursday experience told me to just chill and wait...and then SHEBANG solved the problem of the missing exclamation point. Very cute idea. Catching on early did take away some of the Thursday thrill, but wondering what the crossing BANGs would be made up for some of that (applause for HEADBANGS). Also, the ridiculous JEB[BANG] got a laugh - talk about the wrong guy for a BANG.

    Do-over: I tried to make MaCchiATTo work, by giving it an extra "t." SILENT L corrected that.

    @kitshef 7:29, re: MOIST - I don't get the aversion to the word, either. But a while back I noticed food bloggers avoiding it, so that cakes that once would have been described as "moist" were now "plush." Not sure what they're doing about turkey...."juicy"?

    ReplyDelete
  45. Anonymous11:17 AM


    KarenRackle, on my chromebox I need to select Print, Settings, Print as image; otherwise, only the first two lines of the grid print. These options aren't needed nor do they show up on my Windows machine. Hope that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Anonymous11:20 AM

    Never got the exclamation point gag, finished easily without it, not really caring about jeb bang, ahoy bang… Too many of these types lately—there was a theme?

    ReplyDelete
  47. @Gary J, sorry you’re UNDER the weather but your sense of humor hasn’t suffered. Also, I hadn’t seen your post before writing mine but I like what you did with AMASS MOIST MATS. My take was based on experience - the first yoga class I went to was at the YMCA and after class all the Y’s MATS would get thrown back in the bins. Bought my own pretty quick.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Anonymous11:57 AM

    Another interesting coincidence(?) at the end of the Wikipedia article for "Alouette" - combining the theme and Rex's word of the day:


    The 2010 song "Bang Bang Bang (feat. MNDR)" by Mark Ronson, The Business Intl, and MNDR uses the lyrics 'Je te plumerai la tête' in its chorus. It also mentions the song by name: 'Bang your dead, alouette, paint your silhouette.'

    ReplyDelete
  49. Am I the only one with a demi-Natick: ALARM yielding ILOR instead of AVERT yielding IVOR? While alert certainly fits the clue better, alarm is plausible and IVOR could just as easily have been ILOR (the clue being completely unknown to this boomer…)

    Also, never heard of MOIST being objectionable. And I don’t understand how that could possibly be …

    ReplyDelete
  50. Thank you all for your Happy Birthdays yesterday. This is the one I got from Nancy.

    90 !!!!!!!!

    You never want to see it on your Fahrenheit thermometer.

    You never want to glimpse it on your Uber car's speedometer.

    You never want to pay it for a meal you find inedible --

    But when it's on your birthday card, it's awesome and incredible!




    ReplyDelete
  51. Little skylark, lovely little skylark,
    Little skylark, I'll pluck your feathers off.

    I'll pluck the feathers off your head,
    I'll pluck the feathers off your head,
    Off your head! (Bang)
    Off your head! (Bang)
    Little lark! (Bang)
    Little lark! (Bang)
    O-o-o-oh…

    Later verses were the same except plucking different parts of this poor bird. Had no clue what this song in French was about - makes telling Aunt Rhody’s of her dead gray goose seem uplifting! (Bang)

    (Also, why on earth were we kids of the ‘60s taughtmto catch Monarch butterflies in a net, kill them and mount them and hang the victim on the wall. Sick, sick SICK! (Bang))

    ReplyDelete
  52. Totally agree with you, Rex, that JEB! was the highlight of today's puzzle, although I didn't laugh out loud until I read your explication!

    ReplyDelete
  53. Anonymous12:45 PM

    In retrospect I really wish the revealer had been GO SOUTH WITH A BANG. since the bangs are all downs. Exclamation points across.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Kate Esq1:00 PM

    I briefly thought the theme was going to be obscure grammatical terms in rebuses (that was my misdirect for wouldacouldashoulda) and then I got the silent L and then the revealer and that was that. I found the fill to be kind of trivia heavy. Still easy.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Anonymous1:24 PM

    Cute theme, the cluing put up just the right amount of resistance on a Thursday.

    Almost got tripped up by the density of proper nouns. In the SE: Otis, Starr, Lorre, Alouette, O Pioneers! And in the NE: the stack of REBA EPSOM YAHOO! blocked off the whole section for me. After a minute I deduced that “exciting in a noisy in a violent way” probably ended with BANG which led me to YAHOO! and the puzzle finally fell.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Happy four score, a decade and a day, MathGent 12:10 (bang)

    Between Eater of Sole’s limerick earlier this week and Nancy’s 90th greeting, some good verse writers here…

    My first job in advertising was on Betty Crocker accounts - SuperMoist cake mix and Creamy Deluxe frosting. Being the ‘70s, A MASS of sophomoric, scatological jokes ensued that would be TABOO today!

    ReplyDelete
  57. This was the most delightful Thursday to come back to, arriving home last night from five internet-less days at the cabin (spent doing physical work in 35 C / 95 F heat). As of yesterday we have had 21 consecutive days over 32 C / 90 F, 14 of those over 36 / 97. I have never drunk so much water in my life. And no air conditioning up there or at home (I hate A.C.)

    Like @Andrew Z and others, at first I thought CHIPS AHOY BANG was a new type of cookie, etc. Then as the theme answers piled up I realized that "!" = "BANG" for the downs! Clever and fun.

    #Gary Jugert, your "I still teach ALOUETTE to guitar students because it only has two chords and you get to talk about murdering noisy birds in Canada" made me LOL. It is a wonderfully lilting way to learn some French. "Et la tete" etc.

    Nice to see APERS again; it's been a while.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Got a ! or twos out of this puztheme.

    staff weeject pick: ATT. famed MOCHALATTE ingredient.
    best SUSword: PAPI. Only mildly, mainly cuz I started out wantin PAPA.

    also got a ! out of: PETERLORRE. ALOUETTE [Baseball family avid gal fan]. SEESINTO. MORPHS. SILENTL & MOIST clues.
    M&A Advanced Theory: MOIST is hated by "most", cuz it's the only word to add an extra letter to "most", rudely makin it a whole different thing. [QED]

    Thanx for bangin this puppy out for us, Mr. Gulczynski dude. And with nice, smoooth fillins, btw.

    Masked & Anonymo3Us


    **gruntz**

    ReplyDelete
  59. old David1:46 PM

    I had a nasty Physics teacher in high school who would take 10 points off your labs for each improperly identified unit, and not tell you why he was deducting points or where you went wrong. It really messed up your grade average as he also would not allow corrections.

    Well then, 10 points off this puzzle's constructor and/or editor for misidentifying a "stone" as a unit of mass when it's a unit of weight. These are not the same thing kids.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Medium difficulty. I thought the trick was pretty disappointing, just didn't find the themers really clever or funny. Loved or hated none of the fill. Oh well!

    ReplyDelete
  61. Many thanks to those who posted tips to help my printing problem. Problem solved!

    ReplyDelete
  62. Lyndac10273:52 PM

    Hi! I complete the puzzle on my phone. What do I put in the “bangs” spaces? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you know how to enter a rebus? I used the word BANG and it worked in the NYT Android app. (hey, I'm listening to Paranoid Android as I type this!)
      After I got Congratulations, the app turned them all into "!"
      Someone else here reported you can also fill them with "!", works the same.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous7:39 PM

      Thank you!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous8:06 PM

      It worked! I’m thrilled!

      Delete
  63. Anonymous4:43 PM

    Really? It was worth cramming all those proper nouns and trivia into the grid to accommodate the gimmick of *adding "bang"* to the ends of some answers?

    ReplyDelete
  64. Holy cow. Rex likes a puzzle and, even better, proves he has a heart because he likes The Princess Diaries. Alert the press!BANG

    ReplyDelete
  65. Anonymous6:32 PM

    Yikes! Out of all the chatter about MOIST, I'm most surprised by Carola's note that food bloggers have been using "plush" as a substitute. Plush calls to mind stuffed animals and carpeting, doesn't it? There must be a way to stop this madness.

    And by the way, dank. Now there's a word worth disliking.

    ReplyDelete
  66. First thought for 26 A was SILENTv not SILENTL.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Anonymous11:11 PM

    For my Times puzzle app, B (for Bang) didn’t work. It wanted an exclamation point!

    ReplyDelete
  68. Anonymous3:59 AM

    AJR--Bang! Good song...look it up.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Kristin10:49 PM

    I populated the BANG squares with “!” — a success!

    ReplyDelete
  70. Don Byas12:03 PM

    JEOPARDY! wants to know why it wasn't included.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Another clue for ALOUETTE: Member of Montreal's Grey Cup winning team of 2023.

    Easiest rebus in some time though I had no idea that "!" was informally known as a BANG.

    ReplyDelete
  72. Could that be it? "Most hated word..." is just the added "I" to MOST?? Oh, what a groaner! It's almost up (down, actually) there with that &%#*@ SILENTL. Otherwise, I can't fathom why MOIST would be "hated."

    I had several inkblots till I had things straight (ORTHO). tinY before ITTY, tonNE before STONE, and of course gaNG before RING. That last one was a doozy, almost derailed me.

    Found the gimmick in the SE; knew OPIONEERS but what was with the extra square? _LES. Then's when it hit, one of my finer aha moments. This guy is a veteran contributor, and his agile mind bends around corners that most of us don't see coming. Of his oeuvre, this one was actually on the easier side (NOT to say easy!).

    Novel theme & execution, and a revealer that GOESOUTWITHABANG! Stroke off for that silent thing. Birdie.

    Wordle par.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Burma Shave1:06 PM

    EDGES ARESO TENSE

    If LORNA GOESOUTWITH YEW,
    O, SHEBANG WITH no TABOO,
    A BORDER immoral,
    the ORDER is ORAL,
    ‘SCEPTERS is ALOUD ‘YAHOO!’.

    --- LANCE STARR

    ReplyDelete
  74. This one is half-baked - and who wants half-baked CHIPSAHOY! cookies? Needs to go back to the drawing board. When is Will Shortz coming back

    ReplyDelete
  75. Anonymous4:08 PM

    Fun puzzle bang!
    Easy Thursday bang!
    Fantastic misdirect on the silent L clue BANG!!!

    ReplyDelete
  76. Anonymous4:17 PM

    I was a little surprised by the number of bloggers that didn't know the !=bang equivalency. I'm not exactly sure when or where I first encountered it, but once the interrobang ‽ came into existence I thought it was common knowledge.

    ReplyDelete
  77. rondo7:18 PM

    So easy my grid looks like a piece of art. Not sure the BANG thing is all that; not bad but maybe throw in McClintock! or some such?!(interroBANG) but I find them kind of off-putting. Are those things that exciting? If they need the BANG, probably not good enough to earn it.
    Wordle par.

    ReplyDelete